Purpose of the Process

The DIY DDM (Do-It-Yourself Deliberate Decision Making) system is a web-based form designed to guide users through the deliberate decision-making process. This tool helps individuals make well-informed, thoughtful decisions by leading them through a structured series of steps. As it is web based it can be used at any time and when there is a need to make a thoughtful decision about an unmet need.  This form is often preceded by the use of the Struggling Moment Worksheet which helps to identify unmet needs that are valuable enough to organize a change effort.  The goal is to produce a decision statement that the user can commit to executing through an organized change effort.

Excitation and Inhibition in the Brain

Each step of the process excites the upcoming steps, ensuring that the brain areas involved are optimally prepared. Without completing the prior steps, the deciding areas of the brain will be “cold,” meaning they won’t have the increased blood flow, oxygen, and nutrients needed for optimal performance.

By following this structured approach, users can ensure that their decisions are well-informed and thoughtfully considered, leading to better outcomes and more effective change efforts.

The Deliberate Decision Making Process

Step 1: Build Awareness

This initial step activates the decision-making system by establishing awareness of the problem or decision at hand. This includes the areas of the IFJ and ACC.  As there is a recognition of a struggling moment, areas such as the OFC and the vmPFC become active.  Each involves reflecting on struggles, recognizing the need for a decision, and determining the relevance of this decision to the user’s life.  The outcome of this section is to determine the specific result and its relevance to the decision maker.  Questions focus on the:

• Areas of struggle
• Daily life struggles
• The relevance of the outcome
• The unmet need being addressed
• Current state as well as the products and services currently being used

Step 2: Rewards and Consequences Learning

This step aims to excite the brain’s motivational system, the dopaminergic system, by identifying self-referential, relevant rewards and consequences. It helps the user understand the benefits of achieving their goal and the drawbacks of failing to do so.  This is an important step in activating the deliberate system in full.  By working through the following information, dopamine concentration can be elevated to the point where the critical event of the cortical-thalamic release occurs.  Without this event, the following steps are unlikely to be successful as the areas of higher cognitive activity will be inhibited.  This area includes considering the following;

• Associated rewards
• Impact on higher value outcomes
• Associated negative consequences

Step 3: Solution Seeking

In this step, the user actively seeks potential solutions and clarifies what progress will look like. This involves gathering information, evaluating options, and identifying promising features and benefits of each potential solution.  This switching from pre-dominance of the sub cortex to activity in the frontal cortex must be supported by completion of the prior step.  Without adequate information to the frontal cortex, the area will not have the contextual information to do its job. Some of the information to consider include:

• Products, services, systems, and actions previously used
• Other solutions
• Specific features of solutions

In order to focus the information, the tool of Progress Statements are introduced.  With this step in the process the brain further constrains and contextualizes the possible solutions in preparation for the organizing of the value structure.

Step 4: Deciding

This is the critical point in the Deliberate Decision Making process where a decision is made. The brain’s deciding areas perform analysis, comparison, and weighing to develop a value structure based on the outputs from the prior steps.  This is primarily performed in the dlPFC and related areas of the frontal cortex.  Each feature and progress statement is weighed to determine an overall criteria. 

• Value Structure Builder: Outcomes are organized into a hierarchy by weighing and head-to-head assessments. The least valuable outcomes are eliminated, leaving a structured value system.

Step 5: Commitment

Once the decision is made and the value structure is established, the final step is committing to this decision and organizing the necessary efforts to implement it.

The use of DIY DDM produces a decision that the brain can make a commitment to.  Each step along the brain, the ACC is evaluating and determining the likelihood of success relative to the amount of energy already invested and to be invested. Each step in the process focuses on nodes of the deliberate system which can be influenced.  In this way the decision maker has control over the quality of the decision made.